


Stalker

by chief_johnson



Series: Little Devils [18]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:00:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23109634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chief_johnson/pseuds/chief_johnson
Summary: "Vengeance is mine," saith the Lord. And saith Amanda Rollins. But during the detective's act of retribution, another vengeful soul sets his sights on Olivia Benson—and Amanda learns that revenge isn't always so sweet. Devilishverse, multi-chapter. Sequel to "Haunted" & "The First Cut is the Deepest."
Relationships: Olivia Benson/Amanda Rollins
Series: Little Devils [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1455775
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	1. Every Breath You Take

**Author's Note:**

> So, this one took a while, but it's on the longer side (14k words) and hopefully worth the wait. It's going to be four chapters altogether. It's also a sequel to "Haunted" and "The First Cut is the Deepest," so if you haven't read those, you might be a little lost with this one. As for where it falls in the Devilish timeline . . . I tried to stay somewhat ambiguous about that, because I'm not quite sure myself, lol. But I'm thinking it's set after the in-progress third long installment. There are a couple references to that fic in here, so if something makes you go "hmm," that's probably why. Also, I'll warn you ahead of time that I left this one open-ended in case I decided to revisit some things later. I might not, but I wanted to have the option. OH, AND! It will help if you're familiar with SVU canon, particularly season 14. **TW!** Mild references to statutory rape & child sexual abuse. **/TW!** First person narration because of reasons. Thanks for reading! Look for chapter 2 soon.

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[ ](https://imgur.com/wj7l2DX)

* * *

**Chapter 1:** Every Breath You Take

**. . .**

_She was Liv, plain Liv, in the morning, standing five feet nine in socks. She was Olivia in slacks. She was Captain at work. She was Benson on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always my city girl . . ._

Okay, so maybe I'm paraphrasing a little. But as I sit here listening to him drone on and on about the genius of Nabokov's prose, his use of alliteration, his taboo subject matter—so ahead of his time, old Vlad! (As if perverted older men hadn't been preying on young girls since time immemorial)—and his egocentric narrator, I have to occupy my mind somehow. There is a very good reason that I didn't major in English as an undergrad: I fucking hate literature. Books and reading I like, but the second some four-eyed professor handed me a novel fatter than a phone book, written by a stuffy old white guy _about_ a stuffy old white guy who whined over his man-pain for five hundred pages, I would have laughed my way right out of the classroom and never looked back. So I became a cop. And ended up in a literature course, a dog-eared copy of _Lolita_ splayed open on my knee.

I'm not here for the lecture, obviously. I'm here for the instructor, although he's not particularly noteworthy, either. Mildly attractive, with his salt-and-pepper beard and sharp features, his cozy sweater vest and browline glasses. A bit pretentious if you ask me, but I suppose at (almost) twenty-two he had looked like the all-American '80s boy with his collar popped and his large feet tucked into a pair of leather boat shoes. He's tall. Over six feet. "Like that's a skill set," she had said, when I noted Trevor Langan's height all those years ago. I find myself comparing the heights of other men from her past in my mind's eye—had Stabler been tall, I wonder—and questioning if that is her preferred stature. I'm not short, especially for a woman, but I'm no Trevor Langan. I'm not even an Alexandra Cabot, you might say.

"So, what do we think, class? Is Humbert Humbert a reliable narrator at all, or is every word out of his beady little mind total bullshit?" he asks, and flashes a row of top teeth as straight and white as he is. His eyes are a piercing blue-green, discernible even from my seat midway up the tiered lecture hall. His joke isn't that funny, but several students, mostly male, titter appreciatively at its smooth delivery. I've been trying to figure out what bothers me so much about him, and now I realize that's it—his smooth, almost calming voice. I keep imagining him whispering into Olivia's ear with that same voice while he raped her.

She doesn't know I'm here, scoping out her ex-fiancé and statutory rapist. Had I told her my plan, she would have unequivocally put her foot down. This way, I only had to lie about where I was going—to watch "the game" at Daph's, although no such game exists and Daphne Tyler cares even less about sports than Olivia Benson does—instead of lying and defying her orders. And to be fair, I didn't know what my plans were until I showed up outside Professor McNab's office, tailed him to his evening lit class, and filtered in among the students as they took their seats.

Daniel McNab, that's his name. Olivia let the "Mc" part slip the night she disclosed to me that her first time had been a sexual assault, followed up with a few months of stat rape, by this man, this McNab. For a moment, while I was thumbing through the Hudson University 1984 yearbook and choking on library dust, I almost laughed out loud at the sight of his name. If Olivia had married him, she would have been a cop named McNab. It was funny for all of two seconds, then I thought about him on top of her ( _"Please, God, don't let him climb on top of me again"_ ), hurting her like she'd described, before she had anything resembling muscle on her slender, unblemished sixteen-year-old body, before she knew how to say no, and the humor was suddenly gone.

His students call him Professor Dan. Dan the Man. He seems to have a good rapport with them, an ability to communicate on their level, though he's pushing sixty and, at a few months shy of forty-one, I'm approaching grandma status to most of these kids. Luckily, I don't look it yet, and I more or less blend in with the crowd, in my pink plaid hoodie, scruffy jeans, and high tops. A couple guys were eyeing me with interest when I first got here, so I think I'm pulling off the ponytailed coed façade pretty well. He hasn't singled me out yet, or even glanced my way, probably because he's too busy extolling the clever turns of phrase of a fictional pedophile to notice a real woman in his midst.

"Personally, I think the dude's fucking hilarious," says a guy who didn't raise his hand and looks like Jesus, if Jesus were a nineteenish stoner with lackadaisical hygiene and a Nirvana t-shirt. He points to a line in his copy of the book, which makes mine appear in mint condition, and recites, "'My little cup brims with tiddles.' Man, I laughed so hard I almost shit my pants reading that."

A few of the students—again, all male—snicker along with Stoner Jesus, although some at least have the decency to hide their grins behind a hand or the book they have rolled into telescope form in their sweaty mitts. Dan the Man glances down at the podium he's leaning on and tries to hide a smile, the way I try not to crack up when one of the kids hears me swear in the car and repeats it.

Smug bastard.

"Thank you for that . . . graphic contribution to the discussion, Bode." Professor Dan shakes his head and knocks on the _Lolita_ cover in front of him; it's the one with the adolescent girl's legs, bare beneath a short skirt, knees turned in, bobby socks and saddle shoes on her small feet. An innocent image meant to titillate. Exploitation disguised as a high ranker on most Top 100 Books to Read Before You Die lists. "I'm sure none of us will ever interpret that line quite the same way now."

"What's to interpret?" asks another student who doesn't wait to be called on. This one is female. She's a wisp of a thing, dressed in solid black, a beanie slouching against her long, stick-straight hair. She vibrates rage, perched cross-legged on an uncomfortable plastic chair (my ass is numb from sitting in this one), heavy combat boots poking out from under her skinny thighs. I like her already. "You do know what he's talking about, right?"

Here, she whips her head around to shoot Stoner Jesus (aka Bode) a glare of pure disdain. "He just finished describing the size of a little girl's breasts and when she sprouts pubes. That cup brimming with tiddles is him saying he jizzes to the thought of ten-year-olds. Is that funny to you?"

The classroom goes deathly silent for a moment, and Stoner Jesus' dopey grin falters the slightest bit. "Well, it's not like _I_ got off on it," he says, affecting an indifferent attitude, though clearly unhappy about being called out. "I just got a kick out of the way he put it, geez."

"I think what Bode is trying to say," intervenes Professor Dan, just as the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo gears up for another retort, "is that, in Humbert, Nabokov created one of his most memorable and complex characters. Many scholars consider him an antihero, and his use of colorful, grandiose language as a cover for his own ineptitude and insecurities."

"Let me guess, those scholars are all insecure white men?" Dragon Tattoo fires back, clasping her fingers together behind the beanie and flicking a subtle smirk in Daniel's direction. (Oh, I really like her.) "Humbert is nothing but a lowlife piece of shit pedophile who can't get it up for a real woman. Lolita is the only good character in the book, and he spends half of it demonizing her and all the other 'nymphets' he lusts after, just so he can justify what he does to them. It's sick. This isn't literature—" She wields the book like a fire and brimstone preacher with a Bible, then slaps it back down on the table in front of her. "—it's kiddie porn and an instruction manual for child rape."

I kind of want to give her a standing ovation, but that would be conspicuous. Instead, I turn an eager eye to Professor Dan, gauging his reaction. He must have heard the argument before, from a host of outraged female students to whom he'd assigned the novel over the years, because he is thoroughly unfazed. If anything, he looks more relaxed and sure of himself now. A little amused as he gazes around the room, stooped casually behind his podium. _Observe, class, the feminazi in her natural state: ranting bitch mode._

"I agree with Gretchen," says a girl of about twenty, who is soft-spoken compared to Dragon Tattoo, but no less wispy. (Was I that small at their age? That inclined to disagree with an authority figure, especially a man?) She twines a curl of her long black hair around one finger and nudges the book, cover down, away with another. "I'm uncomfortable reading it. I don't see how it's a 'classic' when it's just page after page of some old man fantasizing about young girls."

The "old man" comment almost makes me snort aloud, partly because it takes the wind out of Daniel's sail for just a second. I haven't actually read the book I checked out from the campus library an hour ago, but I know the gist of its plot—middle aged man, preteen girl. It's a subject I deal in daily as an SVU detective. And the fragile male ego is a recurring theme. Dan the Man has a good twenty years on this Humbert fella.

" _Lolita_ was published in 1955," he begins.

( _Is that the year you were born?_ I'm tempted to call out. Truthfully, I wouldn't be that far off.)

"It predates the Me Too movement and most current age of consent laws. May-December romances were much more prevalent in those days. Elvis Presley met his first wife, Priscilla, when she was just fourteen years old. Jerry Lee Lewis married his thirteen-year-old cousin in 1957. Love stories weren't as . . . restricted in that era, and girls were considered young women at earlier ages than they are today—"

The longer he goes on spewing his rape apologist bullcrap, the more I start to twitch. If he knows the current age of consent laws, he is undoubtedly aware that New York's laws haven't changed since 1984, when he deflowered his newly sixteen but still underage girlfriend. _My_ girlfriend.

I hear myself speaking before I even know what's going to come out of my mouth. It's this: "Just because it used to happen doesn't make it less of a crime. Rape has always been rape, Professor, even when men get away with it by sexualizing and blaming the victim. Bet if you asked Priscilla or Jerry Lee's cousin, they'd tell you there's no such thing as a romance between, say, a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old girl and a grown man, and there never has been. Even if he proposes, it's still stat rape. Statutory rape."

It might be my imagination, but I think the professor colors a little towards the end of my speech. He definitely narrows his eyes at me behind the _Mad Men_ glasses, listing sideways as if he's peering around a corner for a better look at the mouthy blonde who interrupted him. "I'm sorry, I don't believe I caught your name," he says, studying my face too intently for my liking. I'm not worried he'll make me as a cop, I just don't want this prick to remember me.

"Probably because I didn't throw it," I say, offering a tight smile. None of the Georgia peach charm and definitely no dimple. If he does think about me later, all he's getting are the basics: blonde hair, blue eyes, pale, slim. That could be anybody. "Call me Jo."

"Well, Jo, you make a good point. Mind coming home with me to have a talk with my sixteen-year-old?" He shows me those straight white teeth of his, and I can't help wondering how many times he used them on Olivia. "I mean my daughter, of course."

**. . .**


	2. Every Move You Make

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. I didn't expect to post another chapter so soon, but since COVID-19 has us self-isolating and production of _SVU_ is shut down, I figured why the hell not? (The irony that this chapter takes place in a grocery store is not lost on me.) I hope you are all staying safe and healthy. Happy Friday the 13th, I guess?

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**Chapter 2:** Every Move You Make

**. . .**

" _Turn around, bright eyes . . . turn around_ ," I find myself murmuring along under my breath as I drift down one aisle and up the next. I'm going to have this song stuck in my head for at least a week now, but I can't complain. I was fourteen or fifteen when it came out, and though those weren't really simpler times—thirteen and up was its own special hell, living with Serena—I still remember bits and pieces with nostalgia. Like Bonnie Tyler and her "Total Eclipse of the Heart."

Actually, the song reminds me of Amanda, or at least the "bright eyes" part does. Most ballads make me think of her, though. (She would be rolling her pretty bright eyes at me if I told her so, but it's the truth.) Before she came strutting into my life with her sassy little cowgirl swing and those ridiculously tiny jeans she favors, I was beginning to question whether or not love was meant for me at all. It only took me eight and a half years to figure out that it had been staring me in the face, with eyes as deep and blue as the ocean, all along.

I can't be right about everything—there, I said it. And sometimes, especially in matters of the heart, sometimes I get it very, very wrong. But with her, I finally feel like I've figured it out.

Though the eclipse has ended, replaced by a pop tune I vaguely recall despising in the nineties, I continue humming the lyrics as I remember them ( _I don't know what to do, I'm hmhmhm the dark . . . We're living in a powder keg and hmmhmm sparks . . ._ ), sidling up to the packaged mac and cheese dinners. I prefer feeding the kids something a little more nutritious than microwaved noodles and cheese powder, but Noah loves getting to heat up his own meals like a big boy, and Jesse would eat an entire horse if it were comprised of anything that remotely resembled cheese. I grab two packs of the microwaveable cups, and I'm contemplating a block of Velveeta when an odd feeling strikes. Someone is watching me.

Now, I've felt this before. Often without cause, or so I believed until I found out that Calvin Arliss had tailed me for years, photographing me, observing even my most intimate moments, and waiting patiently as a spider to spin me up in his web. I would notice the feeling while I was at the park with my son, waiting in line for coffee, or strolling through the grocery store—like now—and I'd look up in time to catch a glint of light from the bushes or a slender figure retreating around the corner. I told myself I was being paranoid, that my years as a cop (and those four days with Lewis, which seemed to go on for years; our last day together, in the granary, my entire life passing by in a blink, a _click_ ) had finally pushed me to the edge. Occasionally, I still think it might be true.

But I am definitely being watched at the moment, and when I glance up quickly to spot the culprit, I almost laugh out loud to see who it is. She's about two feet tall, maybe twenty pounds on a fat day, and she's wearing pink footie pajamas with mermaids on them. I think I can take her.

Her pudgy legs dangle from the child's seat of the shopping cart, and she kicks them excitedly, giggling, when I wave at her with just my index finger, crooking it several times. I'd guess her around a year old, give or take. My babies are well past that age now, and though I enjoy every stage of their development—except the mouthy ones—I miss this. Being the center of someone's universe is an intoxicating drug while it lasts. I check out the mother, a habit I've acquired from dealing with parents who are often the perps (from even before that, I suppose, dating back to my own mother and her . . . troubles), and she smiles at me.

Then she notices the gun on my hip and the badge on my belt, and her smile fades. I'm used to this as well. People get very nervous around cops, and they really don't know what to make of a woman in law enforcement. It's better than it was when I first started out, back during the dark ages when a girl in uniform was something to snicker about, but I still get some stares.

"Cute," I comment, with a nod to the baby and a reassuring smile at mom. She glances down at the Velveeta box in my hands and it seems to put her at ease. I must be a decent person if I buy this junk, which is good for exactly two things: homemade queso and grilled cheese sandwiches. She's picturing me fixing the latter for my kids—her features soften noticeably—and somehow that makes me less of a threat. I want to tell her not to fall for it, that predators pull those tricks all the time. Ted Bundy wore a cast on his arm to appear more harmless, his victims never suspecting there was a metal rod concealed inside the plaster. Calvin Arliss lured me in with his teenaged girlfriend and infant daughter.

But I can't just walk up to a woman alone in the grocery aisle and start lecturing on the modus operandi of serial killers. Not unless I _really_ want to freak her out. Besides, she's not wrong about the grilled cheese, except it will be Amanda who makes the sandwiches. Jesse complains that I always burn the bread, but Mama fixes it just right (AKA so goopy the whole thing has to be eaten with a spoon).

I consider calling Amanda to double-check our Velveeta stock at home, then it occurs to me she's not there. She left work claiming she was going to Daphne's apartment to watch some game or another. Thing is, I'm pretty sure she was lying to me. Her leg was jiggling nonstop, she practically fled my office, and I know for a fact that Daphne hates sports as much as I do. It would be easy to catch her in the lie just by calling up Daphne and asking to speak with Amanda, but I don't want to be that girlfriend, nor do I want to put our friend in the middle. I'm trying to trust that she has a reason for making up the story. And perhaps I am wrong and she really is watching football or basketball or whatever's currently in season. I hope I'm wrong.

In spite of the outrageous price tag—$8.00, are you kidding me?—I put the imitation cheese into my cart, with a little sigh. I suppose I'll buy it, if it humanizes me and wins me cool mom/girlfriend points at home. The dogs love it too, so I'll be everyone's favorite for at least a couple days. And I have to admit, the stuff does taste pretty good on crackers.

"Bye bye," I whisper to the baby, cupping my hand into a child-sized wave as I pass her and the mother, whose entire demeanor has changed into one of admiration and, if I'm not mistaken, a bit of flirtation. The badge and gun have that effect too.

That's why I'm not at all surprised to find the guy in the frozen foods section eyeing me while I peruse the vegetables, wondering which bags of Birds Eye Steamfresh will least demote my rank as cool mom. At first it's just a glimpse of his reflection in the freezer glass when he skirts by me on his way to the Marie Callender meals. I would have expected Hungry-Man, based on his age (mid thirties), marital status (no ring), and size (bulky, though not overweight), but it just goes to show, you never can tell. He notices my sidelong glance and mistakes it for interest, not realizing I'm assessing the danger he poses. Men never do.

"These any good?" he asks, brandishing a pot pie at me. He's sort of nice-looking, in a young Brando kind of way. I can picture him rending his shirt in desperation and bellowing up to Stella in the streetlights.

I'm tempted to ask him what about my physique gives the impression I eat enough frozen pot pies to have an opinion, but I bite my tongue. The less you engage, the better. Most men take my smart-ass replies one of two ways: as a come on, like I'm going to exchange witticisms over a bag of frozen broccoli, then immediately fall into bed with them; or as a challenge to their masculinity, therefore bestowing on them the sacred task of shutting me up. I'm not in the mood for either right now. I just want to make it home in time to hug my kids before bed.

"Couldn't tell ya," I reply, chucking the broccoli and a couple extra bags of mixed veggies into my cart. In my eagerness to escape, I almost forget Matilda's brussels sprouts. My youngest and I are the only ones in our apartment who will touch the cabbagelike vegetables, while our ultra sensitive and respectful housemates pretend to retch every time we take a bite. (That was Miss Amanda's doing, as are most of the rotten habits our kids know they can get away with because it makes me laugh, including armpit farts and blowing on window-panes to inflate their cheeks to monstrous proportions.)

I grab some sprouts and coast on by the pot pie guy before he can rope me into a meaningful conversation about Swedish meatballs. I toss a parting, "Good luck," over my shoulder as I turn the corner and nearly ram into another guy with my cart. This one is young, not much more than a boy, really. Eighteen at best, with drowsy eyes, big childish teeth—as if the permanents have yet to arrive—and the affected suaveness I remember well from avoiding the pretty boys who populated my high school. In those days, I went for the college pretty boys.

"Sorry!" I practically leap out of my skin and jerk back the cart (it's inches from his crotch), blushing a little at the close call. My reflexes are usually a lot sharper than that. Or they used to be. Detective Benson would have sidestepped this kid and whipped around to the frozen pizzas and ice cream without missing a beat; Captain Benson is trying to recover from her mini stroke. "Sorry," I say again as he casually reroutes like he didn't just narrowly miss a critical injury to his manhood.

"No worries, Captain," he says, a crooked smile on his full, girlish lips. He's small for a man, or even a boy, standing no more than five-five and weighing about as much as Amanda. The chill of fear that snakes down my spine doesn't make sense to me. I could pick him up and throw him, so why do I suddenly feel threatened?

( _Because Calvin was small too_ , I remember. _And Amelia was this boy's size . . ._ )

"Take care now," he adds, sauntering by with his hands in the pockets of his baggy jeans. If he is trying to intimidate me, he's being very subtle about it. He doesn't even glance back when I turn and call out to him:

"I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"You've seen me around." He disappears down the cereal aisle without any further explanation, leaving me to wonder at the encounter—wonder if I'm losing it again, like I did with those prank calls a few weeks ago; wonder if I've finally crossed some invisible line and can no longer view men as anything but predators—and try to place where I've seen him before. He did seem familiar, but my look at him was so brief and clouded by embarrassment, I can barely picture his face. _Take care now_. Why had that sounded so ominous?

I'm tempted to backtrack and follow him for a better glimpse, but my phone rings at that exact moment and the compulsion fades. I meet an endless stream of people in my line of work, and I frequent this grocery store, which is only blocks from my apartment. In all likelihood, the kid is just someone I've crossed paths with along the way. He's not old enough to have done significant hard time  
( _neither were Calvin and Amelia, and look what they—_ )  
and I'm probably being paranoid. Besides, I've still got my service weapon on.

"Hey, Rafa," I say in my brightest voice, after checking the display to be sure for whom I'm picking up. I do that now. "Don't tell me you're here already. You always snag the best flights, you lucky bastard."

"Well, you've cursed me with your mediocre airline juju, you naughty witch. My flight's delayed. I might not get in till morning." Rafael sighs petulantly into the phone, and I can visualize his pouty little boy expression so clearly, he could be standing right next to me, instead of thousands of miles away in Iowa or Idaho or wherever. One of those "I" states. "What the hell are you doing? You sound winded."

He's right, I am. I didn't even notice I was breathing heavily, and I'm not sure whether it's from the run-in with the kid or from receiving an unexpected phone call. You see, earlier today I got another one of those calls, dead silence on the other end, except a moment before I hung up an unidentifiable voice whispered my name. _Ohh-liv-ee-ahhh . . ._

"I didn't catch you in the middle of fisting your girlfriend or something, did I?"

When the question sinks in, I almost drop my phone inside the freezer, along with the jumbo bag of Totino's pizza rolls I'm excavating from the bottom shelf. "Rafa!" I practically shriek, hitting a high note I couldn't replicate if I tried and shooting up straight like I just got goosed from behind. Farther up the aisle, a group of teenage girls deliberating ice cream flavors look my way, look back at each other, and burst into giggles. Great, I have become the laughingstock of Morton Williams Supermarkets. It's like high school all over again.

"What?" he asks innocently, and I can picture the smug little grin that goes with that one too. If I could see it around the beard, that is. "I don't know what you lesbians do in your spare time."

"Well, we don't . . . do that," I reply in a scandalized whisper, transferring a stack of party pizzas from freezer to cart. After a brief internal debate, I throw in a DiGiorno for Amanda. It won't get me fisted, but it will definitely earn me a good feeling-up, at the very least.

"Pity."

"Can we please stop talking about my sex life while I'm buying food for my children?" I'm only half-serious, my amusement at his candid, if somewhat vulgar, suggestion outweighing my discretion. I never got the sibling experience growing up (I used to pray for a brother or sister, someone to take Serena's focus off of me, someone she might love and, in so doing, relieve some of her hatred for her eldest child), and Simon . . . that road led to nothing but heartbreak. Rafael Barba is the sharp, funny, adorably obnoxious little brother I always longed for, and I'm suddenly so excited for his visit, I could skip over to the Ben & Jerry's section—I don't, but I could.

"You're shopping? Aww, little Suzy Homemaker," he gibes.

"That's rich, coming from you, Grizzly Adams."

"I am rather popular with the bears around here, now that you mention it . . . "

We're still laughing and trading barbs by the time I make it through the self-checkout lane, and his sign-off leaves me chuckling, even as I wrestle with the five bags of groceries I'm determined to carry so I can ditch the cart: "All right, go finish giving that blonde of yours her happy ending. See you tomorrow, Suze."

I'm halfway across the parking lot when I hear heavy footsteps jogging up behind me. It takes all my self-control not to drop the bags and go for my Glock; the reflex isn't quite as strong as it used to be, but it's there. I still flinch when something clicks next to my ear or I hear a voice like his. Theirs.

This guy sounds nothing like any of them—the men and women who haunt me so completely, I actually thought they might be calling from beyond the grave—as he trots up beside me and asks, "Need some help with those, hon?" It's Mr. Marie Callender of the Pot Pies, and he's carrying one dainty sack to my bulky armload of five. It almost makes me laugh out loud. Except he called me "hon," and that just pisses me off.

"No. I'm right up here," I say, punching the unlock button on my key fob until the tail lights flash on my SUV, and I hear the reassuring _cha-chunk_ of the automatic locks. I can't wait to be tucked in safely behind the wheel, the doors bolted tight around me. I have had my fill of male interaction for the day.

"Hey, where's the fire?" he asks, turning around and jogging backwards a few paces ahead of me. I have to stop short so we don't collide, and each time I start to walk around him, he dodges in front of me again. "Don't I at least get a 'Thanks, Tim. My name is . . .'? Tell you what, gimme a little smile and we'll call it even."

"Go to hell, Tim. Sincerely, Olivia," I say, keeping a straight face as I watch him approaching the back of a parked van. When he's too close to avoid plowing right into it, I finally point to the vehicle and issue a warning. "Uh, you might wanna . . . "

Too late. He manages a half twist at the very last second, succeeding only in slamming shoulder-first into the van doors, rather than ass-first. I swear there's a loud crunch, but whether it's his bones or the van, I couldn't say. What a shame.

"Night, Tim." I continue on without breaking my stride, while he groans and rotates his arm, trying to pop his shoulder back into place.

"Bitch," he mutters, and stalks off as I'm loading the groceries into the rear hatch of my vehicle. I keep a close eye on him, making sure he doesn't double back around. He folds himself into a comically small red car—a Fiat, I think—two rows up, and slams the door shut with a huff of air that's muted by the inner rubber lining.

I almost feel bad for the poor guy, doomed to a life of anticlimactic hissy fits and lonely pot pie dinners, but climbing into my roomy SUV that has plenty of space for my long legs and a heavy door that closes behind me with a satisfying _whoompf_ , my sympathy fades. It disappears altogether when I pause at the parking lot exit, obeying the stop sign that gives oncoming traffic the right of way, and the red Fiat zips around me in a cacophony of blaring horn and screeching tires. " _Ass_ hole," I announce to the windshield, and consider following after him to get his plates. But he's already long gone, and it's past 7:30 P.M.

I turn towards home instead—and I nearly make it there. Less than five minutes away, as I'm waiting through a stoplight and wishing left turns weren't prohibited on red, the cabin of my SUV is suddenly awash with blinding light. I'd think it was an alien abduction, if I believed in such things and if I didn't look up at the rearview in time to see the headlights bearing down on me. They're so bright I can barely make out the vehicle they belong to, but a second before impact, I catch a flash of silver ( _big truck_ , I tell myself for later, if there is one) and a young driver with drowsy eyes and a crooked, toothy grin.

 _Why is that little boy driving?_ I wonder, jamming my foot down uselessly on the brake as he rams me from behind, forcing me into the intersection. The last thing I see is another pair of headlights careening towards my driver's side window.

**. . .**


	3. Every Bond You Break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (*taps microphone* Is this thing on?) Hmm. Well, anyway, on to my A/N from ff.net: 
> 
> _Day 3 of self-isolation. Have lost all ability to restrain the frequency of updates._ Unfortunately, I'll be out of them after the next chapter, but until then, here's CH 3 for you on this, the Ides of March. Once again, I think it's... eerily fitting.

* * *

**Chapter 3:** Every Bond You Break

**. . .**

"Can I bum one of those?" I hang back a few steps and keep my voice low, trying not to startle them, but they both jump anyway and turn to squint past the cone of light they're standing in. Quickly, I move forward from the shadows, and they breathe sighs of relieved laughter. No one is afraid once they've seen the blonde ponytail and the blue eyes. I could probably get away with murder if I really wanted to.

"Um, sure," says the one in the beanie. It's Dragon Tattoo from the lecture—the girl who ripped Humbert, Nabokov, and Dan the Man a new one, in a single go—and she's fittingly wreathed in smoke, as if the bones of all the men she's rained fire down upon are still smoldering at her feet.

Actually, she's just smoking a cigarette, which bobs loosely from her lips while she scrounges through her messenger bag and pulls out a crumpled pack of Pall Malls. Not my brand, but it will have to do for this particular mission. I only anticipate taking a couple of drags at the most; rarely do I smoke a full cigarette, or any cigarettes at all, these days. I wanted to set a better example for my daughter—for both of my daughters and my son, now—than my parents did for me, sucking down four packs a day between them. Plus, Olivia can't stand the smell of cigarettes. (Reminds me, I'll have to stop for breath mints before I go home.)

Dragon Tattoo's friend, the shy girl with all the curls, is giving me the once-over as I stand there jiggling my legs and pretending I'm not trying to stave off hypothermia. I'm beginning to think she's made me as a cop, or at least as a big fat liar, but then there's a glimmer of recognition and she flashes a cute smile. "Your name's Jo, right?" she asks, nodding the cloud of dark curls at me. "I liked what you said in class. Especially the part about those guys' wives. I had no clue who he was even talking about, did you?"

She directs the last bit to Dragon Tattoo—whose name I now recall is Gretchen, but who shall remain the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in my mind forevermore—and they exchange a laugh, as if the antiquated references are hysterical. I smile along, though the names dropped by the professor were all familiar to me. (Who doesn't know Elvis? God, they're young.)

"No idea," says Dragon Tattoo. She's looking at me with more interest though, and damned if I don't feel a little rush of excitement, like I just got noticed by the most popular girl in high school. I used to make fun of that girl behind her back. "Anybody ever tell you that you sound like a cop? Don't get me wrong, I love it. I've just never heard anybody use 'perp' in an actual sentence before. Cool lighter."

She's gazing admiringly at my little six-shooter keychain, my gift from Olivia last Valentine's Day. This is the first time I've used it to light a cigarette since the night she gave it to me, but my nervous fiddling with the trigger has probably drained much of the juice from the inner mechanisms. Still I manage to get the cigarette lit, and the real struggle becomes not moaning like I'm having an orgasm when I take that first puff. Mmmmm.

"Thanks," I say, the epitome of casual and cool with the Pall Mall in my hand. Even the shivering has stopped, and I blow out a long, steady stream of smoke that looks extra impressive in the chilly night air with my breath augmenting it. I'd equate myself to a female James Dean, but these poor children wouldn't know who that was, either. "From my girlfriend. She's the cop. S'probably where I get it."

"Nice." This time, Dragon Tattoo is the one fawning over the queen bee (AKA me, or "Jo" anyway), and I don't hate it.

"So, all that stuff you said about the laws and everything is true?" asks Curls. She's not smoking with us, but she follows the smoldering tip of my cigarette each time I lift it and take a hit from the opposite end. I've already broken my three-puffs-or-less rule. "You weren't just giving Dan a hard time?"

 _Dan_. Not "the instructor" or "Professor McNab." Just Dan. I remember that no matter how young these girls seem, Olivia was at least four or five years younger than them when Just Dan started taking advantage of her. "Nope, all true," I say, and give the cigarette a practiced flick that scatters ashes into the wind. They disappear into the darkness beyond the security light we're congregating beneath, and something about how easily they slip away sends a chill down my spine. Then again, maybe it's just from standing outside in winter without proper attire. One of these days, I'll finally listen to Olivia and wear a hat and gloves.

"Speaking of Dan the— Professor Dan." I ruminate on the cigarette for a moment, watching the girls closely for any signs of discomfort or reluctance to dish about their teacher. Other than an eye roll from Dragon Tattoo, which I suspect is her reaction to most people, they don't react much. "What's his deal? He as big a perv as he sounded, swinging around his giant hard-on for Nabokov?"

They snicker at that, and Dragon Tattoo wipes her nose on the heel of her palm, then sprinkles some ashes in the mulch at her feet. "McNab? Nah, he's pretty harmless. Just . . . old school."

"Yeah." Curls lifts her chin to speak over the high, zipped collar of her parka, which she's been huddling farther and farther into, until just her eyes and the top of her kinky head are visible. "He's like, fifty something. Plus, he's married. He's got kids older than us. I heard his son is almost thirty-five."

"Holy shit," I say aloud, and they nod in agreement, utterly clueless that I'm responding not to the horrors of old age, but the calculation I've just completed in my head. If Curls is right and there's a thirty-five-year-old biological son, Daniel didn't wait very long to knock up some other girl after he failed with Olivia. I wonder if he raped that girl too.

It also occurs to me that Olivia could have had a kid who was only four or five years my junior. Talk about a giant mindfuck.

"He's never been . . . inappropriate with y'all, then?" I ask, momentarily slipping out of character as Jo in my surprise at the revelation. Inhaling with too much haste, I practically choke on a lungful of smoke and blow it back out with a cough and a strangled: "Or anyone else you know of?"

Smooth, Rollins. Very James Dean.

Luckily, the girls are too repulsed by the question to even notice my newfound croak. "Ew, no," says Curls, the fog from her breath pouring from inside the collar she's retreated into once again. She shakes her curls adamantly. "Not Professor Dan. Well, not with me, anyway."

"Yeah, same here." Dragon Tattoo stubs out her dwindling cigarette on the bottom of one combat boot and flicks the butt into the bushes. "I've never heard anything like that about him. Schultz is the one you gotta watch out for. Don't get caught alone with him in his office after hours, new girl."

Minutes later, when Curls wanders off to her dorm, leaving Dragon Tattoo and me to walk awkwardly in the same direction as we try to part ways, I decide I can't just let it go. "Here," I say, digging a spare business card out of my coat pocket. "If Schultz ever tries anything, don't settle it here on campus. You call that number, ask for— ask for Benson. She'll make sure he never has any more after-hour meet ups in his office."

"Benson." Dragon Tattoo holds the card up to the light filtering over from the parking lot and scans my information at the bottom. "What about Rollins? Isn't she any good?"

"Oh, she's great. But Benson's the best."

"How long you two been together?" she asks slyly, weaving my card in and out of her fingers a few times and snapping it back to her palm with a magician's flourish. It's a neat little trick, and I can't help smiling when she makes the card disappear up the cuff of her fingerless glove. My cover might be blown, but I think the secret is safe with Lisbeth Salander here.

"'Bout a year, officially," I reply, unable to mask the pride in my voice entirely. My new friend seems to have that effect on me. It doesn't hurt that she reminds me of myself as a tough young undergrad, too clever for my own good. "We've known each other a lot longer, though. I can barely remember life without her."

Dragon Tattoo makes a doe-eyed face, pouting her lower lip at the cuteness, but I don't get the sense she's mocking me. She points over to something in the parking lot, cutting our path short with a sharp turn in that direction. I take a moment to crush my cigarette out on the sidewalk—dammit, smoked it all the way down to the logo—then follow after her, hands shoved deep into my pockets.

"What's this?" I ask, when she stops beside a dusky orange Miata parked in one of the spaces reserved for faculty. It's a sleek ride, what some car enthusiasts might call "sexy," but not the kind of vehicle I'd picture Dragon Tattoo having any interest in. She's patting the hood as if it's a well-behaved dog and smiling that sly smile again.

"McNab's pride and joy. Guess what he named her?"

I don't even need to check the vanity plates. "Lolita," I say in a low, purring tone that rattles in my chest, and step up for a stroke along her pristine exterior. She gleams like a little orange flame beneath the street lamp.

"Light of my life, fire of my loins," quotes the dragon lady. I may not have done the assigned reading for Professor Dan's class, but I recognize the first line of _Lolita_ from skimming pages before the lecture. It's a hard introduction to forget. "He likes to have her home and in bed before eight. Should be coming in, say, another ten or fifteen minutes . . . "

As she trudges away, lighting another cigarette inside her cupped palm, my new friend bids me farewell over her shoulder: "Don't do anything I wouldn't do, Rollins."

When all I can see is the tip of her cigarette in the darkness, and even that winks out of sight too, I pull out my cell phone and hurry to the back of the vehicle. I needn't have bothered, as it turns out—the license plate is indeed one word, a name, and a memorable name at that: _Lola_. For a split second, I misread it as "Liv" and almost abandon my hastily concocted plan for the artless but instant gratification of keying **RAPIST** into the driver's side door.

Nah, that would be letting him off too easily. He could just call it a fluke, paint over it like it never happened, the same way he'd deceived Olivia at sixteen and treated her like she didn't exist afterwards. He deserved something a bit more long-lasting, something that would stick with him and make him question himself, the way Olivia had questioned herself the night she told me about their relationship. (She still won't call it rape. I finally got her to admit the first time was an assault, but now she doesn't want to talk about it anymore. "What good will it do, Amanda? It's so far in the past, let's leave it there.")

 _Sorry, baby_ , I think as I pull my car around to idle in an empty spot near the Miata, headlights off, slouched down in the seat with my hood covering my telltale blonde hair. _It may be your past, but you're my present, my future. And unlike every other member of the Rollins family, I take care of my own._

Ten minutes later, just as Dragon Tattoo predicted, Daniel McNab strolls up to his unblemished orange beauty, buffs his sleeve over an imaginary smudge on the tail light, and stands back to admire pretty little Lo. I consider flooring it straight for him and swerving by at the very last second—I've got the reflexes, the timing, to leave him shitting in his pants—but I don't want him to get a look at my plates. Instead, I wait till he's behind the wheel and cruising towards the exit before I creep after him with my headlights off.

Lagging behind as far as I can without losing him or endangering other drivers, I follow him through the streets of Queens. He's lived here for quite a while, according to his bio on the QC website (his Facebook is set to private, displaying only a profile picture of a Great Dane—his, I assume—and a cover photo of an Underwood typewriter). All this time, he's been less than fifteen miles away from her. She's made some big headlines over the years, especially during the Lewis trial and the Mangler case. It galls me to think of him reading about her or watching her on the evening news, probably with his wife, children, and the Marmaduke lookalike gathered round, safe as houses; meanwhile, Olivia, my Liv, was suffering once again for his entertainment. And he just got to walk away.

Not this time. I tighten my grip on the steering wheel, envisioning myself plowing into the rear bumper of his shiny toy, taking him for a ride he'll never forget. It would be fun while it lasted, but I'd prefer the evening didn't end with Olivia bailing my crazy ass out of jail. Or the morgue. With any luck, she'll never find out about this excursion of mine at all. I suppose that means my motivations are purely selfish—that I'm doing this for me, and not for her—

Before I can finish that thought, Daniel's blinker flashes at me, and he slows to a crawl, turning in to the driveway of a large Tudor-style home with half-timbering in cream and navy, a combination that reminds me of blueberry cheesecake. The masonry is constructed better than that of most churches in Loganville, with various styles of multicolored brick, and the hedges are neat and full, despite the cold. And that's just what I can see from the front as I continue by, spotting a privacy fence that undoubtedly encompasses a spacious backyard. He would have an impressive house, the rat bastard.

I caught the house number, gleaming gold beneath the column-mounted mailbox at the end of the driveway: 1616. I'd think he planned this whole thing in advance, if it weren't for the street name—Patrick—which I can't connect to Olivia in any conceivable way. 1616 Patrick Lane. Third house on the left, a million dollar slice of blueberry cheesecake. Got it.

It only takes me twenty minutes to hit the gas station I saw a few blocks back, make my purchases (I even remember breath mints!), and return to the McNab estate—or the opposite side of the street and several car-lengths down from it, anyway. If Dan the Man is anything like my daddy Mean Dean the Wife-Beating Machine, who kicked off his shoes, loosened his belt, and from the depths of his La-Z-Boy recliner demanded a beer the minute he got home from work, when he _did_ work, sufficient time should have passed for me to proceed.

Sure enough, a peek through the curtainless bay window beside the front stoop reveals a living room with vaulted ceilings, a fireplace, and comfy, overstuffed furniture, the loveseat of which Daniel is sacked out on, watching the news and eating something red from a pie tin. Prick.

My knock summons someone quickly, and I know it's not the professor because I hear him call out, "Can you get that, hon?" Good, that's what I was hoping for. But my smile falters a little when the door opens on an angel-faced teenage girl with fawn brown hair in a pretty side braid. A smattering of freckles adorn the bridge of her nose and the apples of her cheeks, which plump up cutely when she returns my smile. Daniel's sweet little sixteen.

This is not how I wanted it to go down, and I hide the brown paper sack behind me quickly, as if she might guess what's inside. Even if her father is a louse, the kid didn't have anything to do with it. She is not who I am here for.

"Can I help you?" she asks, probably wondering who the strange blonde lady is, standing on the stoop and staring at her like an imbecile.

"Uh, yeah. Hey, sweetie. Is your mama home?" I pour on the charm, adding a head tilt and a hint of the dimple. That always gets 'em. I'm about to make up an excuse for why I'm here, but then I notice her necklace and my heart stops. It's one of those personalized gold chains that are all the rage again—they were popular when I was her age too, but now I wear mine permanently—and it showcases her name in a swirly cursive font.

_Olivia._

As she turns to call, "Mom, door," over her shoulder, I reread the necklace several times to be sure I'm not seeing things like I did earlier with the license plate. No amount of blinking or squinting changes the lettering. The asshole had actually named his daughter after the girl he sexually abused in college.

"Your name's Olivia?" I ask while we wait for her mother to appear. I have to be absolutely certain, although I'm not sure what good it will do me now—one way or the other, my mind is already made up. The girl gives me a questioning look, and I point to her glinting pendant. My favorite name.

"Oh." She laughs and pinches the pendant between her fingers, glancing down as if she too needs to verify her own identity. "Yeah, that's me. Everybody calls me Liv, though. Well, except for my dad. He insists on calling me Oh-livia."

I chuckle along with the snooty British tone she affects while rolling her big brown eyes, but my skin is crawling. _Keep it together, Rollins_ , I warn myself. _You're almost finished._ And thank the sweet Lord, the wife/mother arrives a second later, just as I'm imagining storming into the big, fancy house, marching up to Dan the Man, with his stupid gray beard full of pie crumbs, and slapping him silly.

It's mean, but I get a little thrill of satisfaction from seeing his wife. She's not very pretty. Perhaps in the past she'd turned a few heads, but childbirth and menopause thickened her out considerably, and her short stature makes her darn near roly-poly. Her hair is too dark for someone her age and the short, spiky cut, probably meant to be fun and daring, is unflattering to the shape of her face. She looks like the kind of woman who brags about her kids' academic achievements via bumper sticker.

My guess is, she hasn't worn a low-cut dress or a see-through teddy in decades, if ever. And she sure as hell doesn't do to her husband what Olivia does to me in the bedroom on a weekly basis. The one thing about her that eats at me is her age—I thought she'd be younger. Trophy wife number three or four, half the guy's age, a total floozy. This lady is at least mid to late fifties, and it wouldn't surprise me to find out that she is Daniel's first and only wife, the mother of all his children. Somehow that makes this whole thing worse.

And better.

"Yes?" she asks, peering around the door frame with uncertainty. Liv hovers behind, looking curiously over her mother's shoulder at me, and I have no choice but to play the grownup card. Sorry, little Liv.

"Hi, Mrs. McNab. I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute? Concerning . . . " I shoot a meaningful glance at the daughter, then back to mom, lowering my voice and feigning reluctance to continue. "Your husband."

She takes the hint right away (okay, so maybe she is a good mom—or maybe she just knows what a dog her husband is) and motions for her daughter to leave us alone. I tip a parting nod to Liv, an apologetic smile, but as soon as she's gone, I set my sights on the McNab woman and all sympathy vanishes. She joins me on the stoop, pulling the door partially shut with her. Oh, she knows. Or at least suspects.

"What's this about?" she asks guardedly, arms folded across her cumbersome tits. Her bra is ill-fitting, giving her a doughy, misshapen look under the embroidered sweatshirt with the little birdy on it. My grandmama wore sweatshirts like that, right up until the day she died at eighty-five years old. "How do you know my husband?"

"Dan and I go way back," I say, and it's not entirely a lie. He goes way back with Olivia, and I'm here on her behalf. (That's what I keep telling myself, anyway.) The wife is eyeing me up now, her focus mainly on my long, blonde ponytail. I can almost see the wheels turning in her head as she tries to figure out how someone my age could have any type of long-standing relationship with the good professor. _Keep tryin', lady_ , I encourage her silently. _It'll come to you._

Bringing the paper bag out from behind my back, I shake the contents at her a few times. "Just wanted to make sure he's playing it safe these days. I know he's not a fan of gloving up, but it's only fair when the girl asks, wouldn't you say?" She accepts the bag warily when it's offered and slowly withdraws the Trojan condoms from inside, holding the black box as if it might explode in her hand. I took a chance and bought the Magnum XL large size lubricated. It seemed like the Daniel thing to do.

"What the hell is this?" Lady McNab displays the box like a spokeswoman in a Trojan commercial— _now with our triple tested quality seal of approval!_ —but gazes at it as if she's never seen one before. With the husband she's got, she probably hasn't. "Are you telling me he's sleeping around?"

"I'm telling you that there's a reason he thinks Humbert Humbert is such an iconic character. And it ain't because of his cute wordplay." As much as I dislike her, I get the sense that she's not a total dimwit. She'll figure it out. And in case not, I provide her with a bit of extra guidance: "Ask him about his real life Lolita. The girl, not the car. And if he won't answer that, ask him why he picked the name Olivia for your kid. It's a story you'll wanna hear, trust me."

With that, I leave her on the doorstep and amble down the sidewalk, fully aware that she's watching me go. The moment she slips back inside the house, I jog ahead a few yards and dart across the street to my car, ease into the driver's seat, and wait. I know how this next part plays out from years of watching my parents enacting similar scenes: strange woman comes to the door, accusations are made, furniture is thrown, screams are audible for a full block, Daddy tromps out onto the front porch—usually in his BVD's—and denies ever before laying eyes on said woman, let alone doing the nasty with her and knocking her up. Tromps back inside for more screaming and throwing.

Tale as old as time.

I doubt very much that Daniel is the violent type, otherwise I wouldn't have gone through with this scheme. According to Olivia's account, he didn't get his way by using force; he was much more underhanded than that. And if there's one thing I know about men—the violent ones or the underhanded—it's that they don't change. But I haven't met a man yet who could compete with a woman out for revenge. That's why I went after the wife. It wouldn't do any good to just make him squirm, and then disappear into the night like a masked superhero. Batmanda. Even if my gift didn't result in the collapse of his marriage, his career, his cushy little existence, Mrs. McNab would never forget the blonde who knocked on her door one night with a bag of condoms for her husband. Therefore neither would he.

Just as I anticipated, the front door to 1616 Patrick Ln swings open a few moments later and Daniel bounds onto the stoop, glancing from one end of the street to the other like the guy in movies who chases down the intruder with a baseball bat. He's clothed at least, but that's the only noticeable difference between him and my father. Well, that and the yelling.

I parked far enough away and outside the hazy beam from the streetlamp that I'm not too worried about him picking my vehicle out from the others lining this side of the street. His wife is behind him, gesticulating with the box of Trojans, so he's a little distracted anyway. "Dudn't look like your cup's gonna be brimmin' with squat-shit for quite a while, pal," I murmur, chuckling to myself as the pair go on squabbling like a couple of wet hens. It looks especially hilarious with no sound, but I am curious to hear what they're saying to each other. I'm about to turn the ignition just enough to sneak my window down an inch or two when the ZZ Top song "Legs" starts blaring from my coat pocket, scaring the bejeezus out of me.

" _She's got legs, she knows how to use them  
_ _She never begs, she knows how to choose them"_

It's Olivia's ringtone, chosen solely for my own amusement and accompanied by a photo I took of her that night we went line dancing, back in September. She'd looked pretty as a sunflower in the short yellow dress I picked out for her—and dear Lord, those legs. All of a sudden, I can't wait to get home and feel them wrapped around me.

(Apparently, serving up a nice cold dish of revenge whets some other appetites.)

"Hey, darlin'," I say warmly, and take a wide, bearlike stretch, the way I do in the mornings when I wake up to find her smiling at me from across the pillow. I have a feeling I'm going to sleep like a baby tonight. "How's the sweetest, prettiest captain in New York City?"

Okay, that's laying it on a little thick, but I can't help myself. She brings it out in me, and I'm still on a major high from the success of Operation Just Deserts.

It all comes crashing down the moment I hear her voice, small and quavering despite her obvious attempts to keep it steady. "'Manda? Don't freak out," she says, ensuring that I immediately freak out. She sounds like she's in a cave, and someone in the background is prattling on in complete gibberish. I think it might be medical jargon.

"What is it? What's wrong?" I've all but forgotten about Professor and Mrs. McNab, who are standing at the edge of the stoop, gesturing as dramatically as silent film actors. (I guess that makes me the mustache-twirling villain.) "Are you okay?"

She takes too long responding, and I can't tell if it's because she's listening to someone else, or if she's unable to speak. Frantically, I glance at my surroundings and, for the life of me, I can't remember where I am. Then I see those assholes bickering outside number 1616, and I'm back in Queens, sitting in my parked car in the dark, like some fucking serial killer. Cranking on the ignition, I throw the Jeep into gear and peel out of my hiding spot, pull a U-ie in the middle of the street, and gun it towards Manhattan. The McNabs can fend for themselves.

"Baby, talk to me."

Something rustles against the phone—her hair or her jacket, and I catch myself trying to picture both, in case I have to describe—

"I was in an accident. I'm okay." Her mouth is dry. She always talks a little more slowly, more measuredly, when she's thirsty. I doubt she even notices doing it, but it haunts me; I've heard her crying out in her sleep for water. "I didn't get hurt, but they're taking me to Mount Sinai, just to be safe. Can you come? My car's totaled."

Son of a bitch.

"Yes, I'm on my way," I say, and switch on the light bar above my dash. It's for emergencies only, but this is one hell of an emergency to me. "Are you sure you're okay? Are the kids with you?"

"No. I mean, no, the kids aren't with me. They're still at home with Lucy." Olivia holds the phone away from her mouth and coughs harshly several times. (I think she whispers, "Ow," before returning the microphone.) "I'm just . . . a little shaken up. You're coming?"

"Yes, baby, I'll be there. Gimme about twenty minutes."

It's a thirty minute drive from Daniel's street to the hospital. I make it there in fifteen.

**. . .**


	4. Every Step You Take

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this one went by fast. I'm not ready for the last chapter, but I wanted to stick to my every other day update schedule... and today is St. Patrick's Day, so here you go. As I said before, not a lot of resolution here, but that's what I was going for. Hope everyone's doing okay. Happy St. Paddy's Day!

* * *

**Chapter 4:** Every Step You Take

**. . .**

Tomorrow is going to be a bitch. So far the shock hasn't worn off and my body is convinced it's perfectly fine, just a little jittery from being bounced around like a pinball inside five thousand pounds of crumpling steel. I didn't hit my head, which is a plus—the airbag deploying in my face, less so. The EMT who rode with me in the ambulance assured me nothing appeared broken, although he warned of bruising. I haven't looked in a mirror yet, but I'm guessing his inability to meet my eye wasn't a good sign.

Yet another bruise to explain to my children. Wonderful.

The burns on my hands are minor and mostly confined to my thumbs, knuckles, and wrists, where the sodium hydroxide from the inflating airbag settled on exposed skin. According to my trusty EMT, I was lucky that the hot gases didn't melt the cuffs of my coat to my skin. He's a real barrel of laughs, that guy.

My main concern is my swollen wrist. There's no bone jutting out beneath my skin, and I can still rotate it, but I'm gun-shy about that wrist. It's the one I broke with Lewis. (I don't remember how. Was it from being jerked around by my cuffed wrists? Trying to twist free of the restraints? Beating him with the metal bar? It's another piece of that puzzle lost to me forever.) Probably just a sprain, said Chuckles the Emergency Medical Tech. A common injury in motor vehicle collisions. I almost asked him how common it was to be forced into an intersection by a stranger intent on killing you, then getting creamed by another car that took out your left fender and most of the hood, missing your door—and you—by inches. But I held my tongue on that one, and called Amanda instead.

And here she is now, wild-eyed and harried as she leans against the help desk to speak emphatically to a nurse. She looks like a little Hercules trying to move heaven and earth. Spotting me on her own, she bypasses the nurse, silencing the objections with a raised badge, and trots over to the gurney they've got me waiting on.

The first word out of her mouth is, "Fuck," when she whips the gapped privacy curtain aside and yanks it shut behind her. I must really look like hell, but she does a decent job of composing herself by the time she's at my bedside. "What happened?" she asks, surveying the damage as gravely as a medical examiner standing over the slab. Lifting my hand gingerly, she winces at the patches of raw, pink flesh on the back. She's the only person who's ever treated me as if I'm fragile; she's the only person I've ever let get away with it. "Aw, Liv, your poor hands."

"It's okay. I can barely feel it," I say, and that part is true. I know it will change later, but for now, I'm sticking to my old standby—I'm fine. I wrap my hand around hers to prove it, and it's like clutching an ice cube. I swear, she's more stubborn about dressing warmly than our children. "Honey. Where are your gloves?"

"Lord, woman, you were in a car crash and you're worried about me not wearing proper winter attire?" She gives a light, bemused chuckle and shakes her head, but cuts both short to stroke the back of my hair, guiding me in gently to kiss my forehead. "How did this happen?" she asks again, giving me little choice but to tell her. It sounds even more surreal out loud than it did experiencing it firsthand.

"I stopped to pick up some groceries on my way home. Just a few things I knew we needed. There was this kid . . . " I can feel a name on the tip of my tongue as I picture the boy's face, but the harder I try to sound it out, the farther it recedes. That happens sometimes. I've worked so many cases over the years, met so many repeat offenders, I'm bound to forget a few. I hate not being able to remember. It makes me feel old and bad at my job. "Young. Seventeen or eighteen. I know I've seen him before, but I still can't figure out—"

( _H. Something with an H. Harry? Henry? Holden? Hayes?_ )

With a frustrated sigh, I let my head flump back against the upraised gurney and the pillow that rustles like it's made of parchment paper. The careless movement starts my brain to thumping, and there's no doubt about it—I've got a killer migraine on the way. A real skull-buster. My head was pounding so badly I could hardly get out of bed the day after my car accident with Kathy Stabler, and that was long before I got migraines on a regular basis. I shudder to think what this one will bring.

"Anyway. We spoke in passing, and then I kind of forgot about him until I was sitting at the intersection and saw the headlights coming up behind me. God, it all happened so fast." I pinch at the bridge of my nose, feeling the migraine creeping in a little more already, but it hurts to even do that. Maybe I should have said yes to the painkillers they offered when I first got here.

"He rear-ended you?" she prompts, concern etched deeply across her pretty features. That makes this harder.

I've already caused her enough worry as it is this past year, between the PTSD, the night terrors, the not eating, the crying—so, so much crying—the drinking, the issues in bed, the traumas old and new, the phone calls . . . and now: the attempted vehicular homicide. I have no idea how she's put up with all of it for this long; with me. Sometimes I still think I should tell her to run as far away from me as she can. But then I would lose her too.

"Was it an accident," she says like she already knows the answer, "or did he do it on purpose?"

"He— he pushed me into the middle of the intersection. The car that hit me did most of the damage. If the driver hadn't swerved at the last second . . . well, it would've been worse." My throat is so dry, I rasp that last part. Suddenly, I want nothing more than a large glass of water and to be home safely with my family. I'm sick and tired of these hateful, demented men and the games they play. "She's here too. Somewhere. But he—"

( _Henry?_ )

"—he was gone by the time the cops showed up. Witnesses said he just threw the truck in reverse and fled the scene like nothing happened. They've got a partial plate. I should talk to a sketch artist." I toss aside the stiff, dingy white blanket draped over my legs and prepare to stand, but Amanda puts her hands on my shoulders to keep me in place. It's a good thing she does, because the abrupt turn makes me lightheaded. I wouldn't have gotten very far. "Oh," I mutter, blinking hard to dispel the grayout and momentary vertigo. "Maybe I'll do that later."

"Uh yeah, ya think?" Amanda huffs, but her touch is gentle as she pushes me back against the stretcher and fusses at me like an old mother hen. Her hand glides repetitively over my hair, with the reverence of one who deals in the finest silks and satins. I long to be curled up next to her in our own bed, far away from the bustling activity of the ER, the smell of antiseptic, and all these people. These strangers, any one of whom could be _him_.

(How many hims can I survive? I wonder.)

"Somebody just tried to kill you," she reminds me, tucking the blanket around my lap. I can't figure out why everyone wants to cover me up, until she takes my hand again, and I notice the shaking. "You're not going anywhere till you get checked out, darlin'. You could have internal injuries or a concussion, or somethin'. Where the hell is your doctor?"

"I didn't hit my head," I insist, even as she's poking her head out of the privacy curtain and raising her voice to an embarrassingly loud volume in the close quarters. I can hear the woman in the next cubicle over clearing her throat every five seconds.

"Hey, can we get some help in here?" Amanda snaps her fingers impatiently at someone, ignoring my tugs at her other hand. It's the way Noah and Jesse tug at me when I act uncool in front of their friends, which is pretty much always; fortunately, Matilda still thinks I'm somewhat hip. "My girl— my wife needs looked at. She's in shock. Y'all have no business leaving her alone in the first place. There should be a guard outside this friggin' shower curtain at all times. She's NYPD, for Christ's sake."

I really should correct her—for the wife comment, for causing a scene, for assuming I need a babysitter, for using my job to get me preferential treatment—but as she stands there barking orders like she's at a crime scene, I almost start to laugh. Who needs an armed guard when they've got an Amanda Rollins?

Eventually, I rein her back in, leaning into her chest and listening to her rattle off all the precautions we will take to keep me safe from the mystery boy in the silver truck. I can't argue with any of it, even the police detail, because I've got her and the kids to think about now. If any of them had been in the car with me . . .

"And for the time bein', I'll drive you wherever you need to go," she concludes, kissing the top of my head and rubbing my shoulder in unison. "Work, school, grocery store. You name it."

"I have always wanted my own chauffeur," I murmur drowsily, lulled by the soothing kisses and caresses. I'm much too wired to sleep, my body tensing instinctively each time my neighbor clears her damn throat or a medical cart rolls by; but if I could sleep, it would be like this, with her arms around me. I tilt back against her shoulder and offer up a weak smile. "Sorry I called you away from your game."

"Huh?" Utterly confused, she gazes down at me as if she really does think I have a serious brain injury. "What ga— oh. Don't worry about that. It wasn't a very good game anyway. Daphne wouldn't stop talking the whole time, I could barely hear myself think."

That does sound like Daphne, and Amanda is doing a credible job of sticking to her story, but I'm close enough to detect a faint whiff of cigarette smoke on her coat. Her breath smells strongly of wintergreen, so I'm guessing she partook of the cigarettes, wherever she had actually been. I find that I don't care, at least not about the lying. Whatever she was up to, I was important enough for her to drop it and come running. (She had to have flown like a bat out of hell to get here so fast.) That was more than most people, including my own mother, had ever done. I'll ask her about it later, of course, but for now I just want her near me, even if the odor of tobacco is making my temples pulse, my sinuses burn.

A moment later, she leans me back and maneuvers out of her coat a sleeve at a time, tosses it to the end of the gurney, and settles me against her chest once more, while I, boneless and malleable as a newborn, go right along with all of it. And when the doctor finally arrives a few minutes after that, I don't rush to sit up straighter, nor do I contradict him for saying my wife can stay. He does glance at my ring finger, but it's probably to assess the burns.

The debridement and dressing take about twenty minutes total—I suppose I can tell the kids I'm their "mummy" for a while—and I just barely tolerate the poking and prodding to check for fractures. Holding Amanda's hand gets me through it. The CT scan takes the longest of anything else, and I would have skipped it altogether, if not for her insistence that I be thoroughly examined.

In the end, I escape with a relatively minor set of injuries: superficial second-degree burns that shouldn't cause scarring (part of me wonders, for a split-second, if the doctor's emphasis on that detail is due to all the other noticeable scars on my body), but will likely be painful; a mild sprain of the wrist already weakened by a previous fracture; and contusions, mostly to the cheek and jaw, though I'm warned a seatbelt-shaped bruise may form, slashing across my chest in ugly purples and browns, in the next several hours.

This time I don't object to the painkillers they prescribe, although Amanda gives the sample pack a funny look when a nurse hands over the white paper bag while I'm signing checkout forms. She accepts them for me, the bag rattling against her bouncing leg, and I can't help wondering what is going on in that sharp mind of hers. I haven't overdone it with the wine since that night—we both overdid some things that night, God knows—but I'm not so sure her faith in me is entirely restored. It breaks my heart a little, but I don't blame her. I lost faith in me, too.

Our usual brisk and purposeful strides (it's a cop thing) are slowed down considerably by my unsteadiness as we head for the exit. I feel about eighty years old holding onto Amanda's arm and allowing her to guide me through the corridor. It occurs to me that we are literally treading lightly with each other, a thought I dismiss as quickly as it appears.

"You wanna wait here while I pull the car around?" she asks, indicating a cluster of chairs arranged in uneven rows across from the automatic doors.

"No." I clutch her arm a little too tightly at the thought of being left alone, or sending her off into a dark parking lot on her own. I've got my gun, but I'm not convinced either of us is in any shape to use it at the moment. "I can make it. Let's just go home, love. I want to hug our babies."

"They're safe, darlin'. Lucy knows not to let anyone in, and there's a squad car parked outside the building. Whoever the little prick is, he ain't gettin' anywhere near my babies." She squeezes my waist with the arm she's using to usher me forward. "Any of you."

No sooner have the words left her mouth than a lengthy and heavy tread approaches us from behind. It steals my breath away and freezes me in my tracks, and for a second I feel only blind panic because I'm not reaching for my gun—I can't. Then I hear Officer Tamin requesting that we wait up, and I inhale so sharply I get a wary sideways glance from Amanda. She whirls around and halts Kat in place with an abruptly raised palm. _Back the hell up, little girl._

The poor young woman looks embarrassed and a bit chastised by the time I turn to face her, reminding me again that I need to have a sit-down discussion with my two female officers. Namely Amanda, who has a tendency to be extra tough on Kat and extra protective of me. I'll admit it's kind of adorable from a girlfriend perspective, but as a captain I can't encourage it. Much.

"What is it, Kat?" I inquire, gathering Amanda's disgruntled-traffic-cop hand into mine and leading her aside where we won't block the doorway. We'd almost been home free.

"Sorry, boss, I didn't know you'd been discharged—"

"It's fine, Tamin," I say, a little testy myself. Taking a deep breath, I try toning it down a notch or two. It's not Kat's fault that yet another psychopath wants me dead. I'm the fucking pied piper of sociopathy. "Just tell me what you've got."

Kat nods crisply and pulls a notepad from the pocket of her cropped pants. I swear the girl never wears socks. Her ankles must be impervious to the cold. "Reviewed the traffic cam footage and got a full plate on the truck. Registered owner is a . . . " She scans her notes quickly, lips pursed. "Tom Mesner. Fin and I talked to him. Claims his son stole the truck and hasn't been seen—"

"Oh, holy shit." Amanda blanches several shades lighter, turning wide blue eyes on me as if she's seen a ghost, and I'm it.

"What?" I fight the urge to take a defensive step back, with both of them staring at me like that.

"Tom Mesner," Amanda enunciates, though the significance of the name remains lost on me. "Babe, don't you remember? The Mesners. They had that kid who tried to set his little sister on fire. He's the one who shot Amaro. Shit, what was his name? That kid scared the hell out of me. Harry?"

Now I remember, and my blood runs cold. That's why he looked familiar. You might forget a lot of details about a person over the years—name, eye color, family members—but you never forget the face of someone who pointed a gun at yours. Especially when he was a ten-year-old at the time. A disturbed and angry ten-year-old who maintained that it was my fault he'd gotten caught, right up until they walked him into the juvenile detention center where he would serve out his sentence. Had it really been eight years already? Christ.

"Henry," I whisper, more to myself than anyone. "Henry Mesner."

"Yeah, that's him," Kat says, eyeing both Amanda and me with curiosity now. Probably wondering how we could be so spooked by some punk kid. She hasn't met her  
( _Calvin Arliss_ )  
Henry Mesner yet. I pray to God she never will. "He's been in juvie for the past eight years. Got out a few months ago and dad's been trying to get him back on his feet. I'm guessing it didn't work."

A few months ago is right around the time I started getting the threatening phone calls. _Do you want to die tonight, Captain Benson?_ But he didn't come after me that night. It must have taken him a while to lay out his plans. That suggested patience and discipline, a deadly combination for a boy like Henry. Was he watching me the whole time, like Calvin did? Hiding in the shadows and waiting, always waiting, for the exact moment my guard was down? How did I miss this all over again?

As if she senses my increasing anxiety almost as well as Gigi can, Amanda strokes the back of my coat, reminding me she's there, reminding me to breathe. "What about the mom and sister? Where are they?" she asks Kat.

"Parents separated in 2015, mom's got primary custody of the sister. They moved upstate earlier this year to be 'somewhere safe' when Henry was released." Kat flips the cover of her notepad back into place, addressing me directly. "Mr. Mesner thinks that might be where Henry's headed next. We've got an APB out on him, Cap. He won't get far."

I've heard that one before. A boy—no, a man—like Henry can get a lot farther than anyone would ever expect, whether by his own cunning or just sheer dumb luck. Lewis evaded capture for years by relying on both. And men like _him_ . . . they don't forget when they have a score to settle. I try to remind myself that Henry Mesner is not William Lewis, not even close, but my body doesn't believe it. My hands are suddenly on fire, the pain in my wrist and jaw throbbing to life, keeping tempo with my pounding skull. It's not just the new injuries, though. I feel every last one of my old scars tingling, teeming, as if there has been a great awakening inside me. All those unsettled scores.

"Come on, darlin'," Amanda says softly, and I realize I've missed an entire chunk of the conversation, with Kat offering to escort us to our apartment and taking off at a fast clip across the parking lot. Amanda agreed for me. Her arm slides around my waist again, reassuring me she's still by my side. Always. "Let's go home."

Later, stopped at a red light, Kat's taillights casting strange and restless shadows into our vehicle, Amanda catches me checking the rear and side view mirrors compulsively. Her hand finds mine in the dark below and it hurts when she squeezes, but it's a good pain—the safe kind. It means I'm alive.

"He's long gone, Liv. And if he's got a brain in his fool head, he ain't ever comin' back. In the meantime, you're not leaving my sight. If he wants to get to you, he'll have to go through me."

Sweet, if a bit implausible. Tonight just proves we can't be together every waking minute. And she might not know it, but she just zeroed in on exactly what I'm afraid of: that one day my unsettled scores will be taken out on my family.

I grip her hand tighter in spite of the bandages, in spite of the pain. "He'd really be sorry then," I respond lightly, humoring her. I'm the one he has to go through, should he come anywhere near her or our children.

"Damn straight." We've hit another red light, and she brings my fingertips to her lips, kissing them gently. "Trust me, when it comes to defending my girl, there's nothing I wouldn't do."

For better or worse, I believe her. It's the same thing I would do.

**. . .**

**"I'll be watching you."**

**\- The Police**


End file.
